Kansas coach Bill Self held a conference call with reporters late Thursday night after Kelly Oubre was drafted by the Washington Wizards and Cliff Alexander went undrafted.
Here’s a sample of his comments on Alexander, the highly touted recruit who ended his freshman season at KU benched because of an invesitgation by the NCAA for improper benefits. Self was also asked about pre-draft comments Alexander made to several publications, saying that he was dealt a bad hand at Kansas and nothing went well.
“A lot of [NBA] people called on Cliff early but I hadn’t heard that much late. He was pretty much in the dark on that too. It doesn’t shock me. Here’s the thing. Cliff didn’t have a chance to play at the end of the season. Certainly that hurt. There’s no question about that. I don’t know how he performed at his workouts or interviews since then. But I do know this. If you’re not taken in the first half of the second round, you probably have just as good a percentage play in not being drafted. He gets to pick any of the 30 teams to go to now, as opposed to being locked in on one team.
“I don’t think it’s a negative. But from a pride standpoint and ego standpoint, we all wanted him to get drafted as early as possible. But it just didn’t work out. It’s not the worst thing that has happened.”
“He did get dealt a bad hand. That’s exactly what I told Cliff all along. Cliff always said what I told him. He got dealt a bad hand here with the NCAA. He got dealt a bad hand. That’s what I told him, when it all went down with the NCAA. I said, ‘Cliff, you haven’t done anything wrong, you’ve been dealt a bad hand. You’ve got to hang in there and deal with whatever. That wasn’t a negative towards Kansas at aall, to say he got dealt a bad hand. I asked him about it, and he said, ‘Coach that’s what you told me.’ And I said, ‘That’s exactly right, bud. That’s exactly what I told you.”
On Oubre, who was taken with the 15th pick overall by the Atlanta Hawks, who then tranded his rights to Washington:
Self: “I was hoping that he would go in the lottery. But he went one pick out of the lottery. He has a chance to play on a really good team. Hopefully Paul [Pierce] will still be there. Paul, Bradley Beal, John Wall and Drew Gooden and those guys can mentor him.”
Look for a full story on Alexander and other surprising undrafted players later Friday on Today’s U.com.
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